Ryan Anderson's System Center Blog

Get more out of SCCM/SMS 2003 Operating System Deployment with the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit

RyanAn — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 09:49:00 GMT

The Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2008 was recently released. It is the update to BDD 2007 and adds a great deal of functionality to SCCM 2007 Operating System Deployment.

Be sure you check out the following related blogs:

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit Team Blog

Michael Niehaus has been working on BDD/MDT Developer since its inception.

New features excerpt from the release notes:

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New Features

The following list highlights the many new features that have been included in this release of Microsoft Deployment Toolkit:

· Deployment Workbench:

· To better align with System Center Configuration Manager, Deployment Workbench has been modified to create and use task sequences instead of builds.

· Support for multiple task sequence templates has been added. Included with this release of MDT are sample templates. Among them are a client template for Windows Vista and Windows XP, a server template for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2003, a Replace scenario template, and a custom template that can be used to build task sequences that perform tasks in addition to the deployment of operating systems.

· System Center Configuration Manager support, with the following features:

· MDT 2008 supports System Center Configuration Manager deployments for Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003.

· MDT 2008 functionality is completely integrated into the System Center Configuration Manager server. Deployment Workbench is not used with System Center Configuration Manager operations, except when configuring the Deployment Workbench database (DWDB).

· Ability to quick-start System Center Configuration Manager operating system deployments using one wizard to create either operating system packages or operating system installation packages, a Windows User State Migration Tool (USMT) package, a System Preparation Tool (Sysprep) package, a customized boot image, or an MDT 2008 custom settings package (using CustomSettings.ini, Unattend.xml, Unattend.txt, or Sysprep.inf).

· Manage deployment settings directly in Configuration Manager Console.

· Dynamically determine whether user state is backed up locally or to the state management point.

· System Center Configuration Manager uses the CustomSettings.ini file and DWDB to determine the list of packages that will be installed on the target computer. When this list of packages is determined, System Center Configuration Manager performs the required installations.

· A new wizard for creating the boot image is available on the Boot Images node.

· LTI deployment:

· Deployment team members have the option of configuring disks and network adapters as deployment tasks in LTI deployments.

· Functionality has been designed to work like System Center Configuration Manager to ease migration from LTI and Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 to System Center Configuration Manager.

· LTI can use Windows Deployment Services multicast transmission when performing LTI deployments of operating system images from Windows Server 2008 servers.

· MDT 2008 supports LTI deployment for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista with SP1.

· Support to optionally back up the existing drive C on new computers, in addition to support for backing up and reformatting the old computer in Replace scenarios.

· Software updates:

· Support for detecting, downloading, and installing software updates that are available through the Microsoft Updates Web site or intranet servers running Windows Server Update Services (WSUS).

· Web service calls:

· Web services can be invoked as part of the rules processing performed by MDT 2008, using new rules that can be defined in CustomSettings.ini.

· Windows Server roles:

· Support for the installation and, in some cases, configuration of Windows Server roles. These roles include Active Directory® directory service Domain Services (AD DS), Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), Domain Name Service (DNS), Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS), Windows Server 2003 Terminal Services, Windows Deployment Services, and Windows Internet Naming Service (WINS).

· Package groups:

· Added PackageGroup functionality. Package groups help separate packages during installation. For instance, when you have multiple operating systems to deploy and they use different packages or require different levels of patches or different languages, you can assign packages to different groups. You then assign the group to a particular operating system during deployment or you can select a package group for a task sequence. A PackageGroup can be assigned using the PackageGroup variable in CustomSettings.ini.

· Distribution Share Wizard:

· The installation and configuration process for MDT 2008 has changed from BDD 2007. In MDT 2008, Windows Installer does not create a distribution share. Team members instead need to use Deployment Workbench to create the distribution share before adding the operating system source, applications, and so on.

· There is now support for side-by-side installation of MDT 2008 and BDD 2007 installed on the same computer.

· There is now support for upgrading a BDD 2007 distribution share to MDT 2008.

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The SCCM integration adds additional functionality directly into the ConfigMgr Console and minimizes package creation steps that must be taken prior the creation of your first task sequence. You can even avoid manually creating your Operating System Deployment Packages and let MDT 2008 do it for you.

If you are upgrading from a prior version of BDD, check out the following posts from Michael Niehaus:

Upgrading to Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2008 - Zero Touch with ConfigMgr 2007

Upgrading to Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2008 - Zero Touch with SMS 2003

Also note that this release of MDT supports Windows AIK versions 1.0 and 1.1. Windows AIK 1.1 was released with Windows Vista and is required to deploy Windows Vista with SP1 and Windows Server 2008.

To get AIK 1.1, go to the following link:

Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008

Struggling to configure Network Access Protection with SCCM?

RyanAn — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 08:54:00 GMT

SCCM introduces integration with Network Access Protection with the new System Health Validator Point role. SCCM Supports the following enforcement clients:

· DHCP

· IPsec

· VPN

· 802.1X

This is really cool technology. If you want to check it out, in addition to the fantastic docs being produced by our Configuration Manager Writers available on TechNet:

Network Access Protection in Configuration Manager

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb693725.aspx

Administrator Checklist: Configure Network Access Protection for Configuration Manager

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb680600.aspx

You should check out the Step-by-Step Guides available on the Network Access Protection homepage.

Step-by-Step Guides

Step-by-Step Guide: Demonstrate IPsec NAP Enforcement in a Test Lab
Follow the instructions in this white paper to demonstrate IPsec enforcement.
Step-by-Step Guide: Demonstrate 802.1X NAP Enforcement in a Test Lab
Follow the instructions in this white paper to demonstrate 802.1X enforcement.
Step-by-Step Guide: Demonstrate VPN NAP Enforcement in a Test Lab
Follow the instructions in this white paper to demonstrate VPN enforcement.
Step-by-Step Guide: Demonstrate DHCP NAP Enforcement in a Test Lab
Follow the instructions in this white paper to demonstrate DHCP enforcement.

These guides are invaluable to someone who wants to try out the new System Health Validator Point role in SCCM and doesn't have a lot of networking knowledge.

Viewing SCCM performance counters from remote 32-bit system while SCCM is running on 64-bit OS

RyanAn — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 08:41:00 GMT

Since SCCM is a 32-bit application, there are a few steps required to view SCCM performance counters from remote 32-bit OS when SCCM is running on 64-bit operating system.

Perform the following steps on the site server that you want to monitor performance data:
=========================================================================================
Modify the ImagePath value, in the following registry key, from
From:
"%SystemRoot%\System32\svchost.exe -k regsvc"
To this:
"%SystemRoot%\SysWow64\svchost.exe -k regsvc"

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\RemoteRegistry

Then in the Parameters sub-key, change the ServiceDll value
From:
"%SystemRoot%\System32\regsvc.dll"
To:
"%SystemRoot%\SysWow64\regsvc.dll"

Stop and restart the Remote Registry service. This will load the 32-bit version of the Remote Registry service, which looks to the 32-bit registry structure, causing the x64 system to send back the 32-bit counter information to the remote system.

Another thing to note, since SCCM is a 32-bit application, to view the counters locally, you need to run the 32-bit version of perfmon.

By default, it is located here:
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\perfmon.exe

For more details see "Ed Glas's blog on VSTS load testing" blog entry here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/edglas/archive/2006/09/06/reading-32-bit-counters-on-a-64-bit-machine.aspx

BDPs are not returned in content requests from OSD Clients - Update to KB942700

RyanAn — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:43:00 GMT

I submitted a content update request for KB942700 that was published Wednesday. The update was regarding the issue documented in the following article:

942700 The task sequence does not run on the protected branch distribution points in System Center Configuration Manager 2007
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;942700

If you are using OS Deployments with BDPs, please check it out as this took me a long time to troubleshoot. Initially the article discussed behavior regarding advertisement initiated task sequences and I ran into the issue with a customer for an OS Deployment issue. It took a long time to troubleshoot and I'm hoping to save some time for others!

In addition to the newly added symptoms, please note the addition of the updates to the "Apply the hotfix package Notes" section especially in regards to OS Deployment.

For the hotfix that is available to Operating System Deployment clients, take the following steps:

Update all boot images on all distribution points that are being used including the SMSPXEIMAGES$ for PXE initiated deployments.
For your operating system deployments that are initiated by using boot media, re-create your boot media after the distribution points are updated.

To do so, right-click the task sequences node under operating system deployment, and then select Create Task Sequence Media.

For the hotfix that is available to Operating System Deployment clients, take the following steps:

1. Update all boot images on all distribution points that are being used including the SMSPXEIMAGES$ for PXE initiated deployments.

2. For your operating system deployments that are initiated by using boot media, re-create your boot media after the distribution points are updated

· To do so, right-click the task sequences node under operating system deployment, and then select Create Task Sequence Media.

Note that I noticed a few errors in how this section was phrased/formatted in the article and I'm submitting a second update for the article.